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War Shames

Chapter 4 of “The Best War Ever” discusses Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress, who provided the U.S. intelligence services with false information about Saddam Hussein and his (non-existent) link to Al Qaeda and (again, non-existent) nuclear weapons program. It reports on the Bush administration’s negligence of such information in order to advance its war agenda. Chapter 5 of the book discusses the false arguments the Bush administration first made for war, and also the excuses that have replaced those original arguments. In both chapters, the authors point to the failure of U.S. journalists to adequately investigate claims and criticize the government. They make the suggestion that, if reporters had fulfilled their duty to readers, the war may not have had such widespread support to begin with and may not have even occurred.

In these chapters we again see the negative consequences that arise when government actions go unquestioned by the press. When reporters simply relay “facts” fed to them by the White House, CIA or other government agencies, they may unknowingly pass on propaganda and lies taken out of context to feed a political agenda. This is what happened with the Iraq war. If journalists become cowards and fail to seek out the whole story – or report dissenting views – democracy and free speech are threatened at their core. Reporters look like fools when other non-media-professionals, such as celebrities Jeneane Garofalo and the music group the Dixie Chicks, make statements that foreshadow the discovery of truth and popular opinion. When Garofalo made her statements, everyone ignored her, thinking she had no authority on the issue…here democracy failed. When the Dixie Chicks said they were ashamed to be from the same country as President Bush, they were slandered by American citizens and the press…free speech failed. And now here we are six years later with the majority of citizens – and many politicians –echoing those views. Shame on the press for failing to uphold their civic and professional duties at a time when the country needed their services most.